


The Stubbornness of Dwarves

by bofurrific



Series: Hobbit Drabbles [33]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, NOTHING HERE BUT PAIN AND ANGUISH, don't let the title fool you, it is not funny or happy, only without the comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 06:44:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bofurrific/pseuds/bofurrific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kink Meme Fill</p><p> </p><p>Dwalin and Ori have a fight before Ori leaves with Balin for Moria. Dwalin does not learn of their fates until Gimli comes home from the quest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stubbornness of Dwarves

**Author's Note:**

> I hate everything that I choose to be.
> 
> Also I have no idea why Ori left with Balin.  
> I did not make up a reason.
> 
> Make one up yourself and let me know.

Dwalin closes his eyes and thinks, for the thousandth time in the last thirty years, about his last night with his lover.

He had been so angry with Ori for leaving with Balin for Moria. They'd had only forty seven years together under their mountain once they'd reclaimed, not a long enough courtship to even be married, and Ori had left. 

Dwalin understood his brother's need to go, to escape the memories of their lost king, of Thorin, etched so in the walls of Erebor and in their hearts as well, but he could not wrap his head around Ori's reasoning for joining him. What use would Balin have of a scribe, a scholar, in the dark mines of Moria?

He had told Ori as much, had demanded to know why this life here in the mountain with him, what they had fought for, what they had died for, was not good enough and he had to run off, away from his lover.

Dwalin had been angry and hurt and with those feelings came rash and harsh words that filled Ori's eyes with tears, and he had run off to join Balin, leaving Dwalin bitter and resentful, but not sorry enough to chase after him. He had a life here in Erebor and he was not willing to give it up to chase after Ori and his brother into the darkness of the mines.

Dwalin hadn't heard much from Ori since then. A few letters at the beginning from his brother, the new Lord of Moria, that their quest was successful, that Ori was doing all right, albeit lonely and heartbroken, and the odd invitation to join them, but Dwalin had still been nursing his ego, so bruised by Ori's need to leave him, and had not responded.

But now it had been almost twenty six years without a single word from Moria, and even Gloin had received no news from Oin, who had always made sure to stay in touch. And Dwalin decides, finally, that it is time he pay Moria a visit, to see his long lost brother and his Ori, and ask his forgiveness for the stubbornness of dwarves.

He chooses a date, but puts it off when he hears that Gimli, son of Gloin, is returning to the mountain after his quest, and he thinks Moria can wait a few more days so he can welcome his cousin.

But Gimli, for all the joy and revelry he brings home with him to the mountain, also bears grave tidings of his journey through the mines, and he cannot quite meet Dwalin's eye as he lays a massive tome on the table before him. The Chamber of Mazarbul. Dwalin reaches out, heart in his throat, as he strokes the ruined cover of the book, and knows that Ori's hands held it. He looks up at Gimli, whose swimming eyes are on the floor, and he knows.

Still, Dwalin makes himself sit and listen as Gimli recounts, in a choked voice with his father's hand clasping his arm, the watcher in the water outside the west gate and the demise of his uncle, of Balin, his precious cousin, slain by an orc raid in the east the quick overtaking of their colony. Gimli tells them that Balin only ruled for five years before his death. That for the past twenty six years, while Dwalin was brooding far to the east in Erebor, Balin and Ori were rotting in their tomb of a mine.

And Dwalin can hear no more. He takes the book bearing the last words of his love and upends the table, locking himself in his chambers and tracing tenderly over Ori's account of what happened, and presses his face to the page, not caring if he dampens it with tears, and pretends he can hear the scritching of Ori's quill on the parchment, feel the warm woolen mitts closing over his own hands and the smell of Ori's hair as he sat between Dwalin's thighs.

Dwalin closes his eyes and thinks, for the thousandth and one time in the last thirty years, about his last night with his lover. About the letters and invitations that went unanswered, about Ori's last breath, drawn in a tomb with the lord he had followed there into the dark, about never seeing those wide brown eyes or gentle laugh or soft swollen lips, about Ori dying while thinking Dwalin was angry with him. 

He cradles the tome against his chest, ignores the calls from Gimli and Gloin outside his door, and weeps quietly for everything that never came to be.


End file.
